YOU appreciate the reward?” She looked down at the soft purse of coins in her hands and shifted it gently back and forth, to make the musical remark of the money within more alluring. He wasn’t used to being in the house, at least not farther than the kitchen. He stood as if before a magistrate and looked her in the eye. “Enough to ask about the service required.”
“Take the child from the house, deep into the woods, far beyond where anyone might find her.”
“There are woods enough to lose a child in.”
“I want her more than lost. I want her life.”
“The woods will take her life.”
“I want you to take her life.”
“She has seriously offended.”
“It’s not your place to ask why. Nor are you to find yourself capable of remembering this interview. You are a hunter. Wait until night has begun to fall, and take her life however you must.”
“You trust a lot to a man you don’t know.”
“You have an aged grandmother in my employ. You will want her to see her final days in comfort, not—otherwise.”
“I’ve no one else but an aged grandmother. My father and his brother were both killed in the bombardment of Forlì, and my mother died of grief soon thereafter.”
“What is your name?”
“I’m the hunter.”
“What does your grandmother call you?”
“Obedient.”
“Fair enough. Do as I say. Bring me her heart carved from her chest.”
Ranuccio lifted his bearded chin.
“I don’t want her to survive, to call on relatives from across the sea to avenge her abandonment. Make good my request and you shall have this purse, and your silly grandmother shall sleep on her own straw pallet until the end of her days.” She threw the purse on the table. “Her natural days.”
He picked up the purse and weighed it in his hands and didn’t speak at first. It was as if he’d never come across coin before. They both heard the sound of his nonna’s voice calling the chickens in. It was an old voice, and the only one left he knew. He said, “I can hope to commit a murder and to eliminate a child. I can decide not to ask questions about your reasons.”
“Can you also manage to forget that we have ever discussed any of this?”
“Any of what?” he said, and smiled for the first time.